languette

Noun

languette (plural languettes)

1. A tongue-shaped implement.
   • The languette, or plate, is fixed between the two rows of caps, one of its extremities upon the two right-hand caps, the other extending on the left beyond the base of the rectangle.1854, The United Service Magazine, page 98
   • Bronze sword. The curved heel has a small central languette or tongue.1985, D. V. Clarke, Trevor G. Cowie, Andrew Foxon, Symbols of Power: At the Time of Stonehenge, →ISBN, page 308
2. A tongue-like organ found on tunicates.
   • This naturalist believes that the apparatus by the aid of which the act is performed is the series of dorsal languettes or the organs which represent them.1892, Annals & Magazine of Natural History, page 483
   • The wing-like opisthohaptor, bearing two rows of clamps placed end to end and separated by an anchorbearing lobe or languette -- in effect forming a straight angle -- is distinctive.1962, Proceedings of the Helminthological Society of Washington, page 1
3. bony tongue-shaped structure on the mandible
   • At the root of the languette, and a little below the middle of the interior space which intervenes between the mandibles, is placed the pharynx.1834, James Wilson, James Duncan, Entomologia Edinensis
   • The languette, at first very small, as in the genus Atypus, afterwards becomes elongated and advanced between the jaws.1853, The Encyclopaedia Britannica
4. fleshy tongue-shaped structure
   • Lastly, the stem of each auditory hair presents a sort of appendage (the languette), to which the nerve of the hair is attached.1865, The Transactions of the Microscopical Society of London
   • Proximally to the ligament this exposes the languette of the palmar fascia. Some of the fibres of this languette which pierce the subcutaneous layer system are demonstrated.1973, H. Graham Stack, The palmar fascia, page 51
5. A tongue-shaped design used to decorate Ancient Greek pottery.
   • The foregoing analysis suggests that smaller dimensions and decoration with languettes are characteristic of hydrias in our assemblage, though neither criterion need be applicable in other regions or even in other PG periods at Lefkandi. (41)1979, Petros G. Themelis, John Boardman, Lefkandi: The protogeometric building at Toumba
   • It has a spherical body, and is decorated at top and bottom with languettes, or 'tongue' ornament.1999, Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, Ancient Greeks West and East, →ISBN
6. A type of decorative hood used on a woman's bodice in the seventeenth century.
7. The tongue of a reed on a harmonium.
   • The instrument had to be soaked in water for a short time so the languette became soft again.2001, Colombian folclorics instruments, page 74
8. An elongated samara that occurs alone.
   • In the Maple (Fig. 205) each fruit has two samarae united at base. In the Ash there is but one to each flower; its long wing gives it the name languette (little tongue, Fr.)1889, Annie Chambers Ketchum, Botany for Academies and Colleges: Consisting of Plant Development, page 144
9. A valve flap associated with the byssus of a mollusk.
   • The mantle entirely envelops the animal, and forms three apertures, one of which serves for the passage of the byssus and the languette;1867, Charles Knight, Natural History
   • Below it is the more fleshy languette or curtain valve which closes the incurrent siphonal opening when required.1889, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology - Volume 18, page 442